Beijing: China’s is believed to have a hand in the cyberattacks on the US companies from the energy and infrastructure sectors, in July. ‘Proofpoint’, a cybersecurity company informed that the hackers’ group called the ‘APT 10’, which works for the Chinese government, had launched the attacks.

In February and March, critical US companies and naval systems came under a cyberattack. The attacks were attempted to steal sensitive and confidential information of the companies as also defence secrets.

Even though no country was directly accused, indications point only towards China of being behind the cyberattacks. The private cybersecurity companies and the US Cyber Command have made necessary preparations to avert attacks in future.

For the last few months, tensions between China and the United States are consistently inflaming over issues such as trade war, the South China Sea, Taiwan, Huawei and Iran’s nuclear program. Also, US President Trump has repeatedly criticized China for targeting their trade and currency-related policies.

Even as trade negotiations were in progress, President Trump had tried to pressurize China by making assertive statements. The US President’s stance has invited much resentment from China. On the sidelines of the developments, cyberattacks originating from China become significant.

In its report published on Thursday, cybersecurity company Proofpoint has named the Chinese hacker group APT 10 in connection to the attack. Also, the company claimed that the group was working for China’s main intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS). Even in the past, the hacker group had targeted ten different telecom companies around the world in an attempt to steal the data of Chinese customers in June.

In a hack that occurred in July, the malware was revealed to be distributed to the US energy sector’s computer systems. The malware was used to steal information stored on the computers as well as to find links to the functioning of the systems here, states the Proofpoint report. The cybersecurity company claimed that certain factors during the US hack bore a resemblance to the one that occurred on the media companies in Japan last year.

In May, President Trump had declared a National Emergency to curb the cyberattacks carried out by China and its companies. Despite the measures taken to counter the cyber assaults, the current one only underscores the threat posed to the US economy and national security once again.

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